Somehow it completely escaped my notice that an album of Johnny Cash’s last songs, Amercan V: A Hundred Highways, was released in 2006. Cash wrote and recorded the vocals shortly before he died, and the songs were finished by other musicians.

Usually, an album completed after a musician’s death is pretty bad. You can always tell things were done to the songs that the artist wouldn’t have done himself, he had lived. But I think this Johhny Cash album is an exception. The songs on this album are mature meditations on death and life, and are often really sad, but they have a restrained elegance to them. The arrangements are suitably subtle and drift more towards blues than country. I hope when I’m on death’s door, I’m still producing art that is as relevant and interesting, although really, I’ll just be grateful if it’s readable.

Anyway, I’m really digging this tack from the album, God’s Gonna Cut You Down. Listen Here.